The Boy Scouts Of America are looking to recruit the future Ron Swanson's of the world, but you don't need a beard to join, you just need the desire to "be one with the wild" (their campaign slogan). Only time will tell whether their ads, featuring kids with epic beards, will increase their numbers or scare the wits out of potential recruits!

In my experience, the individual Scout troops are all different. The troop leaders determine how it's run. You'll always get a few nutters who try to turn it into an evangelical organization, but that's not to say the whole lot of them are crazy. Hell, the Civil Air Patrol in the town where I grew up was more a revival than anything to do with airplanes.

If your local Scout troops are on the Jesus Wagon, you might try 4-H clubs at the high school level for an alternative. In my opinion, that's far more valuable anyway. Scouts bored the crap out of me, and it didn't give me any advantage in the military. I learned more about survival and outdoor skills in boot camp and infantry training school than I ever did in the Scouts.